The Consequences of War
by Riika Duskraven
Summary: They'd been together for as long as he could remember. First as strangers, then as friends, but never something more. It wasn't that he didn't want to be with him. It was just that John had always insisted that he wasn't gay. Of course, the consulting detective knew better but he never had the heart to confront him about it. (AU Johnlock. Established Mystrade)


R: Hello everyone. I'm back with another story. New fandom this time, too. Not really new in the sense that I just joined it but new in the sense that this is the first time I've written for it. Should be exciting...

Cat: Um... Are you okay Riika?

R: Not in the slightest. I feel sick and my shoulder is killing me.

Cat: You really should get that looked at. Maybe a nap would help for now...

R: Yeah, maybe...

Disclaimer:: Neither Riika nor Cat own Sherlock or its characters.

Warnings:: Spoilers, sweetie. It's a dark story, that's all the warning you get.

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><p>He'd always said that he had no friends, that he didn't care about anyone or anything other than his work. But that wasn't true. He had friends. Three, to be exact. There was Greg Lestrade, a Scotland Yarder who had asked him for help in several cases. He considered them to be friends, or at least, not enemies. He felt they had gotten a bit closer after Lestrade proposed to his brother Mycroft a few years after they met. Sure, he considered his older brother to be his arch enemy but that didn't mean he couldn't be friends with his arch enemy's husband.<p>

And there was Mrs. Hudson. His landlady. He'd helped her several times when things had gone wrong and in exchange she gave him a reduced rate on rent at the flat he had moved into as soon as he was old enough. Mrs. Hudson was good to him. She'd always tell him she wasn't his housekeeper and yet every time he returned from a case that was particularly difficult or kept him out late, there was a cup of steaming tea and biscuits waiting for him. He remembered one time he'd pushed a man out a window for harming her. Explaining that to Lestrade had been a rather interesting tale.

Then, there was his best friend. The one he depended on to be by his side, case after case. The one he had shared his flat with. The one whom he would have to comfort when the nightmares got to be too much. The one he valued above everything else. The one he loved. They'd been together for as long as he could remember. First as strangers, then as friends, but never something more. It wasn't that he didn't want to be with him. It was just that John had always insisted that he wasn't gay. Of course, the consulting detective knew better but he never had the heart to confront him about it.

John was a doctor, an army doctor to be specific. John was the kind of person who would go out of his way to help someone in need. As much as he said he didn't see the point, it was part of what he loved about John. When John had gone into service in Afghanistan, he had been so lonely. He had never realized how much he would miss John when he left. He had written him every week, though he rarely sent any of the letters. He counted the days until John would return to 221B Baker Street and he found himself slacking off without his blogger by his side. And when John returned three years after his departure, he was happy, so happy he could have screamed. He had welcomed him home with a small party, consisting of himself, his brother and Lestrade and a few members of the Yard, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and John's sister Harry. It had been a splendid party full of many happy returns and he was glad to have his John back.

And then there was the case of Moriarty. The Great Game, as he'd called it. Mysterious messages with even more mysterious clues were just the beginning of a dangerous game with a new enemy. He passed one test after another, solving case after case that was thrown his way until eventually he made arrangements to confront the elusive Moriarty. Jim Moriarty was a snake of a man, cunning and clever and cold. The last thing the detective expected when he went to meet the mystery man was to find himself faced with such a terrifying sight: his best friend decked out in explosives being manipulated by his greatest enemy. He was shocked and terrified and livid. He had wanted to kill Moriarty then. He had wanted to make sure that the man who threatened _his_ John could never hurt him. But Moriarty was gone in a flash and in his desperation to save John, he pushed his anger aside. All that mattered in that instant was getting John away from those explosives before they could go off. Distracted as he was, he didn't expect Moriarty to return. He was sure if Moriarty's phone hadn't gone off, he would have shot the explosives and killed himself in the process just to save John. He could have done it, would have done it, if not for that awful song that he couldn't stand to listen to. It rang through the silent room and echoed off the walls. He hated that song. But he had saved John. His relief outweighed his anger. John was alive, that was what mattered to him.

So the cases continued and one by one they solved their mysteries together, becoming slightly more famous with each victory. There were several times that he tried to work up the courage to confess to John how he felt and there were others that someone else would suggest their being a couple and John's denial would cut through him like a knife, making the heart he didn't know he had ache with longing. And on the nights when John had a date with some girl, he found himself sitting up through the night until he returned home, pondering over what could be keeping him and despising the woman who had caught John's eye and taken him away. Sometimes, on days when they sat around the flat in comfortable silence, he found himself watching John for long periods of time. If the doctor had ever noticed, he wasn't sure, but he never mentioned it. Occasionally, when he was reading a book or catching up on John's blog, he would catch John looking at him over the edge of his newspaper or from behind his laptop and he would pretend not to notice. He had wished he could figure out what John was thinking when he did that. He wondered if it were possible that John was thinking about him in the same way he thought about John. It wasn't likely but he wished it were true. Still, he was happy to have John by his side after so long apart and he'd do what he had to to make him happy, even if that meant letting him go out gallivanting with some woman whose name he never bothered to remember.

A year had passed since John's return to Baker Street and many-a-case had been solved by the world's only consulting detective and his blogger. They had just received a new case from Mycroft when they got the call. John had spoken in short, formal sentences to the man on the other end and when he hung up, John told him that he was returning to Afghanistan. He'd tried to convince John not to go but it was in vain. There was no choice, John had to go. He accompanied John to the airport and bid him farewell with that usual smile of his. John left him, hardly knowing what would await him in the heat of battle.

He waited, falling into a state of depression that even the occasional letter couldn't have solved. He wrote a response to every letter in the same fashion as he always did, telling John about the few cases he bothered to take while he was away. He'd taken to sleeping in John's room and he kept each letter John sent him in a box beside the bed. On nights when he was particularly down he would take one letter from the box and he would read it again and again until he was able to sleep. It was those letters, the ones he received once a month, that kept him going. The time between letters was spent wasting away in the flat, doing the occasional experiment or shooting at the wall, which was already full of holes. Any cases he took were of little interest to him, cases he normally would have ignored because they took so little effort. Mycroft kept trying to get him involved in things he and Lestrade needed help with but he turned them down every time. What did it matter if John wasn't with him? He passed the time in utter boredom with little motivation to do anything. When the last letter from John came, he had had nothing to say. So he made up a story based on cases from the past and he sent it with a heavy heart. He waited for the response in the same way as always.

He waited 27 days. No letter.

33 days. No letter.

41 days. No letter.

87 days. Still no letter.

John had been late sending his response before but never two months late. Three months without a letter and he was beginning to worry. What was John doing that kept him from writing? Was he busy fixing soldiers? Fighting? Or maybe... He had to fight back the sinking feeling that came with the thought that John might not be okay. He found himself riddled with worry, unable to sleep. He had barely bothered to eat and when he did it was because Mrs. Hudson brought him something and made him eat it. He continued to wait, blocking out even the slightest possibility that the letter may never be coming. He refused to accept it, even as three months became five and five became ten. He refused to accept it even when John didn't come for Christmas like he promised he would. He wouldn't let himself believe something bad had happened to John. He would wait forever for John to return.

It had been three years since John had left for Afghanistan the second time and thirteen months since the last letter and still he waited. Mycroft had tried to convince him to give it up but he wouldn't listen. He had to believe John was going to write him. If he didn't, who would? Who would be there when John returned if not him? No one. They all believed John was dead but he knew better. John couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.

A month later, the doorbell rang. Not the usual half-ring of a client but a full ring, loud and doleful. Mrs. Hudson called to him to come down but he refused. Upon her insisting, however, he threw on his robe and trudged down the stairs. He stopped in his tracks when he saw who was waiting. The Sergeant saluted him solemnly and the soldier beside him did the same. He did his best to hold back his emotion as the Sergeant addressed him and handed him a folded envelope. It felt like a shard of broken glass in his hand and he saluted the Sergeant before retreating upstairs to John's room without another word. He had wrapped himself tight in John's favorite blanket before braving the letter. Unfolded, he recognized John's handwriting spelling his name with the address beneath. He took a deep breath and removed the letter from within, studying the page intently. It was dotted with smears of blood and ink and water (salty: tears?) but he could still read it. He had fought back the surge of tears that threatened to spill but as he went on he found it impossible and they flowed freely against his will. He'd read through the letter six times before he could believe that it really was written by John and he returned it to its envelope, placing it in the box atop the others.

It was the last letter he would ever receive from John.

John had said he knew it would happen.

John had said he was sorry he wouldn't be back for Christmas like he promised.

John had said he was going to miss him.

John had said he loved him.

He was broken beyond repair. His best friend loved him and now he was gone. He'd never gotten a chance to tell John how he felt. He regretted all the times he could have but didn't. He was angry with himself for it. John had loved him and he loved John.

And it was too late.

At first, Mycroft had tried to comfort him, persuade him to do something, anything other than sit in John's room day in and day out. But it was futile. His John was dead. He'd never see him again. The thought never left his mind, nor did the dark message of the letter he knew John had never intended to send. The days passed him by in a blur of grey, the only colour the sunlight that peered into the room through the always closed curtains. He watched the time go by him, hour after endless hour, doing nothing to pry himself from the dark depths of the dungeon of his mind palace. Mrs. Hudson came to see him every day but he never opened the door. She left tea and a snack outside his door and he'd wait until she was well gone to get it. He'd drink the tea and occasionally eat a biscuit and set it back where he found it. She'd retrieve it sometime in the evening.

A year had passed since he got the news of John's death and by then everyone had given up on him but Mrs. Hudson, who continued to keep up their daily routine, though sometimes she would go up and find everything untouched. It was on one these days that she sensed something was wrong. Instinct drove her to open the door, for she knew it was not locked. It was never locked. Upon entering the room, she found him hardly breathing with an empty syringe beside him on the hard wood floor. When he woke days later, he found himself in a hospital room with Mrs. Hudson sitting beside him. She explained that he'd overdosed and would have died. He told her she should have let him. When he returned to Baker Street with her later that evening, he fell right back into John's bed, wrapping tight in John's favorite blanket and wishing he were with John, wherever he was. From then on, she made a point to bring his tea inside and set it on the table. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

Another month gone by and for the first time in almost two years, he left the flat. He had donned his usual coat and scarf, bid Mrs. Hudson farewell, and made his way to the hospital. He met with Molly in the morgue, caching up on all the odd deaths he had missed while he was sulking in his mind palace. He had helped her with some of the ones she hadn't figured out yet and he had returned to Baker Street late in the evening. For several days in a row, he would wake early and leave for St. Bartholomew's where he met with Molly and spent the day being the consulting detective he used to be. And during that time he had felt that maybe he _was_ the consulting detective he used to be. But every night when he returned home and curled up in John's bed to sleep, he was reminded that the one thing he had ever wanted was gone forever. He would pull out the old box of letters and read through them, thinking of all the pointless replies he had sent that could have been used to say the three little words he had wanted to say for so long. He would stash the letters away when he was done and choke down a few tablets that sent him into a dreamless sleep. Two weeks passed in this same manner and Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft and the others had begun to think that maybe he was done grieving, maybe he was becoming himself again.

They were wrong.

That day was the same as any other. He had woken up at seven thirty sharp, showered and dressed in his usual manner, said farewell to Mrs. Hudson and went to meet Molly at the morgue. He had helped her with her duties and they discussed past cases of his which he explained in fascniating detail while she listened contently. They ate lunch together as they had been and then resumed work. In the evening when it was time to go, he walked with Molly to the doors but didn't leave with her as he normally did. He told her he had to talk to a patient about a case and she left on her own. He had made his way back inside but instead of going to find a patient to talk to, he had returned to the morgue. He jotted down a quick note addressed to Molly and left it on her desk where she would find it in the morning then made his way up to the roof.

The night air swept through him as if he were a ghost, chilling him to the core. His breath was frosty against the dark sky and as he looked up, the stars glittered like the eyes of a predator in the dark. He let out a mournful laugh that he cut off before it could become a sob. He walked to the edge of the roof and looked at the ground several stories down. He wondered vaguely if it would hurt and then reminded himself that he didn't care. He was already hurt.

He was shaking as he stepped up onto the ledge. There were few people on the street below him and those who were there hadn't noticed him or anticipated what he would to do. He spread his arms wide, feeling as if magnificent wings he didn't have were expanding out behind him to carry him away to where his John was waiting for him. "I love you, John," he heard himself whisper. He stopped shaking and let the wind carry him down, down, down to the ground. And in that last second, he thought he could hear John's voice screaming "Sherlock!"

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><p>R: There. 3000 words exactly. A great accomplishment if I do say so myself.<p>

Cat: Yeah, that's pretty good.

R: You bet. I'm gonna go lay down...

Cat: Right... Reviews and requests are loved. They keep her writing. Until next time...


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